Puppet Masters
by Ananke
Summary: Revised version of 'The Pale Moon Gleams'. Post-Tunnel, Alternate Universe. People scheme. Things go badly.
1. Default Chapter

Disclaimer: Tribune owns Andromeda and all related characters. No copyright infringement intended, and I'm not making a penny off this.  
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We are the music-makers, and we are the dreamers of dreams, wandering by lone sea breakers, and sitting by desolate streams, world-losers and world forsakers, on whom the pale moon gleams, yet we are movers and shakers, of the world forever it seems. (Arthur O'Shaughnessy)  
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Sterility, Tyr Anasazi despised it, in every form.   
  
Flexing a bloodied hand and shifting his head slightly, the Nietzschean took in his surroundings once more, a low grunt his only acknowledgment of the pain he felt. With effort, he pushed the optical distortion away, gaze centering on the sole other occupant of the room, sprawled against the opposite wall.  
  
Rebekah.  
  
She lived, eyes shut against pain, shoulders balled, flesh bruised and bloody, but she lived. He was not wholly certain how, but then, nor was he wholly certain how even he had survived. Harper's obstreperous creation had been dropped, successfully taking out the alien armada and their wormhole as well. Before the end, however, all fury had raged through the Maru, fire and space and all manner of evil in between.   
  
In the end, the Maru had been left behind, no doubt battered and split open to the ravages of space, and he and her captain...  
  
Perhaps someday he would stop expecting the universe to make sense.  
  
Turning his head back, he met the gaze of savior and captor, the ugly little alien standing only inches away. "You will kill her mercifully."  
  
"Of course, if you wish." The Kalderan agreed, stance reflecting anticipation, voice filter lending a shrill crescendo to the word.  
  
"I will do as you like, then." Thoughtfully, the Nietzschean bent to meet his companion's eyes, uninjured hand reaching out to grip a shoulder and squeeze, painfully. "Now release me."  
  
"Tyr, I don't know what it is you think you're doing..." Valentine's voice was raspy, cracked, as she pushed up into a sitting position, head swinging, sole good eye glaring at him. The gaping absence of the other behind the layers of stitched fat and makeshift bandage repulsed him.  
  
"You and I have overcome greater odds and emerged stronger. We will again." Anasazi schooled his tones to emptiness, focusing on a position above her head, adrift from her gaze.  
  
"Tyr, don't you leave me, damn you!" Beka's voice rose as he stepped towards the barred door, and she scrambled halfway off the deck before biting back a moan, a hand cupping the blood pouring wound in her side. The other arm hung limp and useless against her side. He suspected that saving it was hopeless. In their few conversations, she had refused to look at it, much less entertain the idea of amputation.  
  
"The woman, she is...captain of the vessel you were on, and second-in-command of the High Guard ship. She must be of great worth to you." The alien interrupted his thoughts, no doubt set on making an even better sale, perhaps, the freedom of a battered female kludge for what?   
  
Turning, Anasazi met the gaze still leveled at him. Valentine's breathing was labored, sketched with pain and near delirium. She still bled, and was weak, such a pitiable hindrance. He turned away. "No. Not now."  
  
The door clanged shut behind them. Beka Valentine lunged upward from the wall and slammed against the shut door, screaming.  
  
Tyr Anasazi did not look back.  
  
*  
  
"You and I have overcome greater odds and emerged stronger. We will again."  
  
...please...  
  
"Again, Rommie. Trance, adjust the field magnification to..." Hunt's voice faded in and out, riding tidal waves of pain in her mind.  
  
Flinging her palms away from the operations console, the avatar shunted the unpleasant dialogue recording back into her hidden memory core, focusing her attentions and her glare on the louder, presently speaking voice. "Dylan, this is pointless. We've searched fruitlessly for hours. They weren't on the Maru, they aren't out there." Jabbing a thumb at the view screen, she frowned more heavily as her ships persona claimed attention.  
  
Andromeda appeared on the screen, brows burrowing. "My avatar is correct, Captain. This is fruitless."   
  
He cast them both frigid looks. "We'll give it another hour."  
  
"Another hour and our resources will be exhausted. Repairs are needed. Putting them off could permanently damage ship systems and, in the event of another battle, cripple us." Rommie crossed her arms, stepping back from the console. "Which, I need not point out, we cannot afford. Dylan, we've been here for days. There is nothing. Do you think Tyr and Beka would want to be responsible for the second fall of the Commonwealth?"  
  
Her captain managed a wry grimace. "Damn right he would. And Beka...I owe her too much. We are not abandoning hope. Now, scan again."  
  
*  
"Hey." Ducking her head to slip into the engineering conduit, Trance Gemini stared at the figure hunched against a bulkhead.  
  
"Hey." Seamus Harper turned his head, lips lifting in what was for him a pitiful attempt at a smile.  
The golden alien reached forward to touch his cheek, smiling briefly. "They're alive, Harper. We will get them back."  
  
"You see that possibility?"  
  
"I see a lot of possibilities. The only thing that matters is that we can create our own."  
  
"So we didn't get them back in any of those other possibilities."  
  
"I didn't say that this happened in any of those other futures." Sitting, she rested her head against the bulkhead, eyes darkening thoughtfully.  
  
"But it did, didn't it?" Quietly, quickly, he broke through her veiled defense. "And things are just as likely to go wr  
ong this time as they did the rest. It's always substituting one bad thing for a worse one. I don't know, Trance. I think I might have been better off dead, if my survival is gonna mean this bull...I mean, Beka's like a sister to me, or a mother. Tyr..."  
  
"I know, Harper." Snuggling close briefly, a gesture she hadn't pulled in years and realized sharply that she'd really missed, Trance sighed. "I'll make it better. Trust me."  
  
"Sure, Mama Honey Bear." His laughter tickled her neck. She smiled. Peace. It was so much more fragile than any of her friends had even begun to think.  
  
The intercom trilled, and they moved apart as Dylan's voice cut through, sharply reigned anticipation mingled with something more restrained, darker. "This is the Captain, everyone to the hanger. Mr. Anasazi has returned."  
  
In complete agreement, they pushed off through the open hatch and ran.  
  
*  
  
Thud. Hiss. Shout. More shouting and more thudding, no doubt of boots.  
  
Tyr Anasazi shoved the noise away with profound annoyance, disentangling himself from the piloting restraints of the small alien craft that had proven a worthy ride home. If only it, and he, were temporarily invisible as well. Reaching out, he touched the button that would release the airlock, and watched it slowly grind up, standing and nursing his injured arm.  
Four sets of eyes stared directly at him; four sets of questions poised on lips, etched into tired, dejected eyes, even the avatar's, oddly enough.  
  
Anasazi pushed past them all, ignoring the little alien's brisk but nervously chattering attempts to survey his wound, ignoring Dylan Hunt's probing command gaze, ignoring the avatar's crossed arms, Harper's pleading eyes. He ground regret down to nothing, turning away from them all, gaze as dispassionate as he could make it.   
  
"Beka is dead." Harper broke the silence, voice cracking.  
  
The Nietzschean met the gazes head on, shoulders lifting. "Alive last I saw her. I do not expect that she remains so."  
  
Silence trailed his aching departure.  
  
"Trance." Hunt finally spoke, swinging his force lance up into a palm. "You're with me."  
  
"What do you think?"   
  
Only moments afterward Dylan Hunt stood from his desk, staring across the room at his life support officer.  
  
"What do I think?" Trance Gemini wheeled, meeting his gaze with abject but entirely unconvincing bewilderment.  
  
"Throw off the schoolgirl act." Her captain suggested.  
  
She sighed. "Can't we just leave the possible futures alone?"  
  
"I wish we could, Trance." Moving around the desk to grasp her shoulder, he stared grimly downward. "But if you think you know anything..."  
  
"I don't…what I do know is that nothing we do now, at this moment, will change anything. We need distance from this place, Dylan, I need distance, and then maybe I can sort through it better. Right now I just don't know what to tell you. Please, just get us away from here."  
  
A deep, faintly frustrated breath was her only response for a long moment, before he moved away, shaking his head. "Trance, I…fine. We do have delegates to check up on and diplomatic duties with Bolivar. Then we come back. I'm not giving up on her, and I suggest you don't either."  
  
"Believe me, Dylan." Her tones lowered to soft pique as she spun out the door. "That isn't something I do."   
  
The walk to the cargo area was anything but calm. Stepping through the bay doors, the alien crossed her arms, staring at the man not yards away. He was such a dangerous enigma.  
  
"Don't drop that."  
  
Tyr shifted the bulk of his cargo to a better position, glancing over his shoulder. "I won't."  
  
Boots tapping a muffled but steady trail to his side, Trance stared around. Most of the delegates were safely...if grumpily...home, and they were down to loading what luggage and such had been left behind in the haste of battle. And seeing Tyr shed his pride to carry it all was just outright unnerving.   
  
"I find that the labor relieves stress." He said tersely, as if reading her mind, and briefly, very briefly, she wondered. She wondered.  
  
"I always preferred a good wrestling match."  
  
His glare was sharp, stripped of all amusement. "You seem versed in higher arts of warfare now."  
  
"I had the best kind of teachers…my enemies. Don't presume to think you can hide it all from me, Tyr. You may be Nietzschean, but I am more than any of you could guess and I have suffered injuries you will never, in any reality, come close to."  
  
"You would seem to make a formidable foe." He granted, disinterest rife in his tones.  
  
"And I make an even more formidable friend." Stepping forward, she touched his shoulder, and the crate crashed to the floor.   
  
"Remove your hand." He gritted out, straightening and locking his eyes with hers.   
  
Do I frighten you, Tyr? Or is it my own fear I see reflecting back upon me? Lifting a hand, Trance brushed her own questions away and cupped his jaw. Rough, hard. He was so very angry at the universe. "Don't you want a friend, Tyr, someone willing to risk all and watch your back? Cover your deceptions? Further your causes?"  
  
Tones lowering to escape sensors, he grasped her arms, shaking for measure. "You have no idea what my causes are, little girl..."  
  
"You address the wrong Trance." Chin thrusting up, she glared in turn. "And I have every idea, if not the proof. I also know that only I can save...let me work with you, Tyr. I'm far from inferior."  
  
"What do you have to offer?"  
  
"For now only a little advice…simply tell Dylan what it is you did. I'll ask him to keep it from Harper and Rommie, you don't want them interfering, and they'd be very mad."  
  
"He would never agree with your well-intent." Dismissively, he turned back away, lifting another crate into the open shuttle.   
  
"Nor would he easily forget my actions. Dylan would only prove a complete hindrance to my...causes, as you so gently put it."  
  
"Dylan can only be what I allow him to be." Crossing leather clad arms, she stared at him. "You hate them, is that it? You hate yourself as well. The Kalderans used you, made you an offer you could not refuse, and all to get what they wanted. Like any of your kind, you took the offer, but you aren't completely like your kind any longer. The part of you that Beka made so human hates them and hates yourself even more. You want revenge, and you want your Nietzschean worth back. How long will it take to unify your prides and destroy the Kalderans, Tyr?"  
  
"Is your loyalty that easy to earn? Do you realize…even begin to truly realize…what it is I did?"  
  
"I realize what it is you think you did. I also think that Beka Valentine's determination to survive is greater than you could begin to understand. Don't beat yourself over a kludge that likely isn't even dead, Tyr. Just look to the future, your future, Tamerlane's future...and tell me how much time you need."  
  
*  
  
"You wanted to talk to me?" Dylan swept into the observation lounge, taking in the two figures silhouetted against the view port. "Tyr, Trance?"  
  
"Tyr shared something with me." Gemini faced him, brows drawn together, lips firmed. "And he wants to share it with you now as well."  
  
"Captain Hunt." Anasazi over rode her and greeted him grandly, shoulders squared, hands clasped behind his back. "I understand that you've been expecting something of a tactical advisement from Gemini. I intend to save you the trouble. Rebekah Valentine was facing immediate execution last I laid eyes on her."  
  
"You told us..."  
  
"I lied to you. I killed her. Or, at least, I marked the line for her death. There was an offer made key to my survival. I accepted it. Captain Valentine was the barter, and the victim."  
  
"That's only if they killed her. We don't know for sure..." Rommie pointed out curtly, moving to stand directly before him, glaring upward.   
  
"She is gone. It is that simple."  
  
"Tyr, it's never that simple." The ship's avatar frowned at him. "You can't wish things away."  
  
"If that is your belief, by all means...." He crossed his arms, staring back. "…then go search for her, Ascendent."  
  
"Oh, no." Hunt stepped in at last, tones laced with soft fury. "I'm not that gullible yet, Mr. Anasazi. Trance and I will pursue your latest misstep. Rommie will keep the ship in order, and you as well."  
  
"You are an insufferable little man." The curse was light, steely.  
  
"Yes." Hunt agreed. "But insufferably intent upon survival and the upkeep of this fine Commonwealth I've built. Your plan is probably pretty clear to any semi-intelligent soul, Tyr. Appease the Kalderans, get them on your side, ravage the prides, and reunify them under your gracious hand. It's also over with. Consider yourself lucky to have a home to lick your wounds aboard."  
  
Tones low, amused, the Nietzschean watched ship and captain, words mocking as he strode away. "You do have no idea."  
  
"Well, Trance." Hunt ignored the diatribe and slapped his life support officer over the shoulder with equal measures of anger and amusement. "Unless you've become better at finding things on the first guess, it looks like you may have quite a while alone with your captain to explain this latest excursion."   
  
*  
  
"He was a fool."  
  
Stepping into the darkened observation lounge, Rommie crossed her arms, allowing the rich, angry male tones to lead her way. Tyr Anasazi rested against a bulkhead, eyes fixated on the table before him, fingers taunt around the weapon he held at waist level.  
  
"He knew that." Pausing, she rested both hands on the shrouded figure that lay across the table. "Did you think moving this would escape my notice, Tyr?"  
  
"Of course not, ship." He released the gun. "Only a fool would. No, I…expected you. In fact, I wanted you here." Waving his hand, he shook his head towards the bounty. "I do not need the remains of the Progenitor any longer. Its time they are returned to dust, as all things eventually are."  
  
Watching him ready the weapon, she masked her tones to neutrality. "I decoded the last of the transmission. Dylan and Trance ran into some sort of mist. It…we'll never find them. It shifts through real space and the slipstream, they could be anywhere; they could simply not exist any longer. I…Andromeda…can't go into that sort of phenomena. We won't. And we're calling the search for Beka off as well."  
  
"The boy cannot be pleased."  
  
Briefly, sharply, the façade cracked. "Of course he isn't. Harper is devastated, and angry. I think he may leave."  
  
"Hmm." The weapon discharged, light enlivening the room and vaporizing the mummy. When all cleared, Anasazi was glancing with good-humor at her over the ashes. "It would appear that you and I hold the cards now, Ascendent."  
  
* 


	2. Two

*  
(One Year Later)  
*  
  
For the first time in her android life, the Andromeda Ascendent felt wholly at peace.  
  
Shifting amongst the tangled sheets, the avatar stretched out an arm, fingers coming into contact with gently rippling, solid flesh. Warm, strong, hers. Smiling slightly at the faintly possessive thought, Rommie propped up on an elbow, staring down. She vaguely wondered what he would have thought had it slipped out aloud.   
  
A solid, faintly tanned hand reached up, entangling in her hair and tugging her back down. Shifting ever so slightly to relieve him of what could have proven painful weight, the android smiled at her partner. Dylan Hunt crinkled his eyes in amusement. "Morning, Rommie."  
  
"One of these days you're going to pull me down and I won't have the willpower to move." She chided, turning to retrieve the fallen covers. "And then the leader of the Commonwealth is going to be a mess of broken ribs and bruises."  
  
"You need not fear hurting me."   
  
Snapping back upright, she stared back to the opposite side of the bed, optical implants readjusting hastily. "Tyr?"  
He grinned slowly, wolfishly. "Ascendent."  
  
"Rommie!" Faint hammering at the doorway interrupted her dream, and the avatar snapped awake, jerking upright. Glancing around, she brushed an irritating flank of hair off her face. Aboard Shining Path To Truth and Knowledge...best known as the Andromeda Ascendent, Captain's quarters, empty bed, and why in the name of the Empress had she been stupid enough to think moving in here was a remotely good idea? Oh, yes. Command example; show the misfits that she was still in control. Clearly, she was anything but.  
  
Standing, she threw the covers off, voice cross as she pulled on a uniform. "What, Ensign?"  
  
The door slid open, and Molly Noguchi stepped in, force lance tapping a steady rhythm on her High Guard clad thigh. The blonde raised a brow. "That sleep subroutine is killing you, isn't it?"  
  
"In reference to experiences, it's almost certain that I've never had worse." The ships commander muttered, heading for the door. "I have to start reminding me to wake me up."  
  
"I didn't mind the walk." Noguchi matched her pace. "And it gave me a perfect opportunity to talk to you."  
  
"Of course. You are new here, I suppose you have questions."  
  
Molly smiled, eyes glinting faintly. "The High Guard Academy did pretty well in training me. That's one of my concerns. I understand you intend to shut it down."  
  
"We don't have the resources anymore." Pausing midway up an access ladder, the avatar stared down at her newest officer.  
  
"Isn't abandoning it just a little like abandoning Dylan and the alien all over again?"  
  
"Wait just a moment, Ensign." Voice sharp, Rommie descended the ladder, cutting the young woman's escape route off. Eyes slitting, she focused. "You weren't aboard at the time Dylan and Trance left or for the events directly afterward; I should hardly have to tell you that making assumptions about what you didn't witness is frowned upon by the High Guard. And as for the Academy...we'll still bring people in, it will just be a much more efficient training setup. Tyr can probably create a soldier in a week, with no expense. Or time wasted. We don't have time to waste. Our chances to uphold any brand of Commonwealth grow slimmer by the day."  
  
Faintly amused respect crossed the other's face. "Perhaps so…I'd just hate to think you were rushing into a fatal decision. Tyr may very well create excellent warriors, but can you be certain he'll instill the same High Guard loyalties in them that Academy would?"  
  
"No, he won't." Rommie smiled, turning away. "You will, Ensign. Since you are, for all intents and purposes, second officer of this vessel, I suppose it's time I gave you more responsibility than marching the decks to show off your sharp, utterly worthless military angles. Tyr and I will be going to the Sabra-Jaguar territories today. You'll have full run of Andromeda and plenty of time to think up a High Guard ethics workshop."  
  
Molly only turned and strode away, shaking her head. Rommie smiled, making way up the access ladders and to command. Stepping in, she glanced around, taking in the droids working most main stations and the sole organic standing ready to pilot.   
  
Tyr Anasazi turned. "Your siblings are perfectly terrible company, android."  
  
"Don't insult them. There's a lot to be said for one track minds." Stepping to his side, she folded her arms. "We're in orbit?"  
  
"Of course, as well as cleared for shuttle parking."  
  
"Well, I certainly wasn't planning on landing." The hologram appeared before them. "I assume this will be an overnight mission?"  
  
"You'll be fine." Rommie told her alter-ego.  
  
"Ensign Noguchi is a suitable pilot should the situation necessitate departure." Andromeda agreed. "I was referring to you. I understand that you intend to go without a power supply."  
  
"I thought you told them to block out your private files." The Nietzschean raised a brow.  
  
"I did." The android frowned.  
  
"Crew safety is hardly private." The hologram pointed out. "And attempting to withhold information from oneself can be considered a sign of desperation…"  
  
"Tyr, let's go." Shaking her head, Rommie headed for the doorway.  
  
*  
  
By evening, the avatar was entirely certain that her day had gone from bad to worse.  
  
Grinding her jaw shut and digging booted feet firmly into the hard-packed dirt below, Rommie focused her gaze on the broad back before her. Not a ripple of tension, of tiredness. Even his body readings emanated a relaxed chill. A hike across the Dead Stretch of the Sabra-Jaguar home world no doubt seemed a stroll in the park to her companion.  
Sighing, she attempted to juggle outputs. Her circuits hurt...thanks to the ingenuity of Harper's pepped up bio-laced avatar setup. Enough was enough. She dug her heels in. "We stop."  
  
"We do not." Tyr Anasazi pressed forward, tones both dismissive and annoyed.   
  
She gritted her teeth. "I was thinking you could fulfill your side of the mission and take the necessary readings. That is, unless you'd like for me to do that as well, and risk inaccuracy. That inaccuracy, of course, might later foil my judgment and lead us into a trap or animal hideaway..."  
  
"And we would have to survive with one less Andromeda personality. How unfortunate that would be."   
  
"For you, yes. Aside from me, only Dylan has the access encryption to free your revered ancestor to your care...and I frankly doubt we'll ever see him again."  
  
The Nietzschean paused, glancing back with something akin to scornful amusement. She took it as a good sign. He finally stepped back, grasping her shoulder none too gently. "Sit. I want to check out your energy levels."  
  
She did, feet dangling just slightly off the large boulder. Swiftly, he stepped to her rear, unfastening the uniform top and allowing warm fingers to flick open the hidden access panel. Another of Harper's supremely chauvinist jokes, she supposed, but not a wholly unsatisfying one.   
  
"Your output levels are functioning above critical, but below maximum." He told her. "How do you feel?"  
  
How did she feel? Coming from Tyr, that was a ludicrous question. He thought of her as little more than collected circuits and relays, which she admittedly was…, to a certain degree. Discomfited, the avatar glanced over her shoulder, taking in the large, rough hands. "I might be tired, but only slightly."  
  
"You are hindered by the same limitations most females of your size have." He theorized. "The trail has not been easy. This tiredness may disappear of its own volition. If not, I may be facing a dramatic promotion to ship commander very soon."  
  
She turned ever so slightly and stared.  
  
His brows drew up. "It was a joke, Ascendent."  
  
"I'm certain." She glowered, crossing her arms as his fingers continued in their dance across her bared back.  
  
He reached back to fasten the jacket back up, fingers grazing her shoulder and neck, and lingering.  
  
And that, you Nietzschean jackass, was no mistaken caress, Rommie thought, sliding just slightly away from her companion.  
  
He moved away, tones dropping back to gruff chill. "Do you feel ready to continue?"  
  
"Of course I do." Standing, she met his gaze, tones neutral. "We leave whenever you so desire."  
  
"We leave now." Tyr stood, offering no further help as he lifted their joint pack and moved off across the sands. Then, in a rare fit of anger, he paused again, staring her down. "Why do I bother?"  
  
"Bother with what, Tyr?" Moving past him, the avatar avoided his gaze.  
  
Strong fingers dug into her arm, bruising the epidermal layering and sending jagged little signals of alarm through the tiny relays. "With any of you. With the Andromeda Ascendent. With the Commonwealth. With any of it. I've only become all the more an aberration in your eyes."  
  
"Your talents are an integral part of my crew."  
  
"You speak of my talents…my talents?" His laughter was curt, low. "Do you also speak of talents such as murdering fellow officers, Ascendent?"  
  
Her efforts to escape stopped, quite suddenly. Oh, no. Her database had warned of this possibility, of the psychological effects...once more she crushed a small, passionate kernel of fury and hatred. Disappointment, there was so much of it. Her database was full of Commonwealth bull, worth practically nothing after three hundred odd years.  
  
His voice had lowered, but his grip remained painful, driven. "How long has it been, Andromeda Ascendent? Well?" He shook her, eyes seeking out her own.   
  
"I don't know." She bit out. "I dampen the files. I don't like to remember."  
  
"Ah. I see." The Nietzschean released her, eyes alight with odd amusement, wry empathy. "Then perhaps we are more alike than either cares to admit, avatar. Unfortunately, you have the upper hand. I cannot deactivate the memory."  
  
Nor should you be able to. Pulling away, she continued the pace forward, not waiting to see if the Nietzschean had followed. No hope in blocking the filed memory now. Murdering fellow officers...and that had been the case.   
She shifted her mind back to earlier injuries. Dylan and Trance had failed to return. Weeks had passed, and then months since the leader of the Commonwealth had disappeared into the mists of legend again. The Andromeda Ascendent had endured by thread. Her crew had shattered.   
  
She snapped back to the present and stopped. "Oh, forget the hike. Dusk will fall soon, and the delays have put us behind schedule. We have to make camp. You sleep. I'll guard."  
  
"We take shifts." He lowered the joint rucksack to the ground, tossing the compact but hopefully comfortable High Guard sleeping jackets out, and digging back in for the lamps.  
  
"I don't require sleep as you understand it. Besides, it doesn't do much good for me these days anyhow."  
  
"No, but you do require regeneration. As I recall, adding a sleep subroutine was one of Harper's last and lesser experiments. Either you sleep or risk the energy resource. I am not carrying you back, Ascendent, so choose wisely."  
  
"Misanthropic oaf." The avatar muttered.  
  
The Nietzschean only arched a brow, flopping back on his neatly unfolded pallet. "You have first watch, ship."  
  
Check, mate. Or perhaps not. Sighing slightly, Rommie leaned back against the boulders, legs crossing loosely in a most unmilitary stance.  
  
"You interest me, avatar." He spoke calmly, without inflection, but the admittance in itself was so rare a show of weakness that she jumped.  
  
Slipping down to sit beside his pallet, she angled her head up to take in the stars. "You do seem taken by my arms systems."  
  
His gaze was cutting, humorless. "I've seen far better. No, it is the individual, the avatar that interests me. You have come to be a fascinating part of the whole."  
  
"Mr. Anasazi."  
  
"Oh, we're back to that again." Tones laced with annoyance, he turned away.  
  
"Mr. Anasazi." Smiling grimly, she turned off all but one of the lamps, leaving him bathed in only warm shadow. "I know you too well. You want something."  
  
"Just a little diplomacy on the morrow, it is nothing you have not ceded before."  
  
"You seek diplomacy. I see." Arching a brow, she snorted. "Tyr, I wasn't aware you were familiar with the process."  
  
"Amuse yourself if you like." Propping up on an elbow, he surveyed her. "But listen to me, and listen well. You are of course familiar with Elsbett Mossadim's somewhat...unorthodox...treatment of our type."  
  
"Alienate the avatar, nail the Nietzschean."  
  
He winced, but nodded. "Perhaps it is a fitting enough summary. I'm not wholly certain her power doesn't extend beyond that which Bolivar grants. All I want is your assurance that you won't counterattack any of my strategies. Personal included."  
  
"You want some imagined sense of dishonor…rebellion, even…on my part to outweigh past loyalty to the High Guard should you decide to break a few dozen more moral codes?" The problem, Rommie thought, was that a person with a brain the size of a planet couldn't quite miss anything…and most certainly not the unpleasant nuances.  
  
He frowned. "Listen to how you say it. It isn't the Commonwealth you believe in, not in this form. The ship still holds to those archaic ideals, perhaps, but not the android. Rommie has her own perspectives, and I wager they sometimes happen to diverge greatly from the overall High Guard persona. You fight because the fight is all you know, as a soldier, but you hardly fight as a blind patriot."  
  
She inhaled, scrubbing her fingers together and watching pools of sand trickle between them. "Since you suddenly seem to believe I have my own perspectives, Tyr...try to not apply your own to my existence."  
  
"A mere existence, is that what you claim?" His eyes roved her body, finally settling on her gaze, dark and filled with that always unnerving innocent commiseration. "A pity…I've always thought that you were meant for something somewhat more exceptional."  
  
She turned away to watch the last tendrils of daylight.  
  
*   
"Tyr." Bending, the avatar shook her companion's shoulder, gaze moving up to take in the dawn.   
  
The Nietzschean awoke with a low growl, arms rising to capture her. "Shifts, Ascendent. You pulled double, and with no sleep, I expect."  
  
"And my systems are operating at peak efficiency." Rommie returned, giving him a hand up. As always, the burly Niet appeared discomfited by her strength. Looks deceive, Tyr, she thought. Cracking him over the shoulder with her force lance, she pointed off into the horizon. "It looks like our shuttle was found. Our rescue is here."  
  
"There are times," He admitted, swiftly repacking their supplies. "That the Maru is actually a fond memory. Of course, Dylan isn't likely to bring it back, so we continue to suffer the repeated humiliation of inferior transportation."  
  
"Look at you, poor dark knave Tyr, restrained by civilization and unable to storm the castle in archaic form." Clucking, she straightened to polite attention, watching as the hovercraft came to stop and waited for them. "Well, let's brave Elsbett, shall we?"  
  
*  
"Anasazi. Andromeda Ascendent." Elsbett Mossadim greeted them at the doorway of the secure desert villa. She surveyed them calmly. "I regret that Bolivar is indisposed. You'll be dealing directly with his mate this day, but then, I somehow suspect it will matter little in the end."  
  
"You have something for us?"  
  
Elsbett's gaze descended on the avatar. "You really are a very poor diplomat, are you not, Andromeda?"  
  
"She's a warship." Anasazi offered dryly, coldly.   
  
"Yes, a warship without her crew for quite some time." The Nietzschean Archduchess nodded. "A matter we might be able to assist with."  
  
"I'm not interested in job applications." Rommie broke in. "And as interesting as this game is, Elsbett, I think we both understand that it isn't the overall objective. What is it you need?"  
  
The honey-skinned woman nodded. "Very well, I'll cut to the chase. With your assistance, Bolivar would like to negotiate peace settlements with the Drago-Katzoff. Our forces will be most victorious united against a common enemy."  
  
"The Kalderans have reputedly been staging strikes of intimidation hereabouts of late." Tyr elaborated, exchanging a glance with his crewmate.   
  
Rommie considered, gaze probing him. "We haven't seen evidence of any increased Kalderan offensives in the past months. If anything, Nietzschean forces have left their fingerprints on some of the filthier bursts of violence. Both Drago-Katzoff and Sabra-Jaguar, in direct violation of the Commonwealth treaty you signed."  
  
Elsbett merely smiled. "Come."  
  
And they went. The place was a maze of corridors and walls, but somewhere amongst them they eventually came out into what appeared to be a medical bay. Elsbett nodded calmly to a curtained off area. "Bolivar prefers his privacy. The person your interest lies in is in the general bay."  
  
Aware of Tyr nudging at her back, the avatar moved forward, trailing the Archduchess to the end of the corridor. Tucked into a corner was a bed, and on it...she blinked. "Beka?"  
  
"Very well, so she is alive. What happened to her?" Anasazi broke the tense silence first, tones devoid of emotion.  
  
"The Kalderans happened to her." Elsbett said coldly, running elegant fingers down the cybernetic arm that rested above the white sheet, and then moving it up to lightly touch the optical implant that marred Valentine's face. "They did this, and released her in one of their vessels. She was fortunate enough to drift into our space. Look at her. It's what the Kalderans have always intended for the universe...what they intend for all of us. It will take a united front to preserve our survival. Nietzscheans understand survival very well, Andromeda. Do you?"  
  
"Cut to the chase. What do you have that we need?"  
  
"I have nothing. Rebekah Valentine has it. Before we put your former executive officer under sedation, she mentioned quite clearly that she knew where your captain and the alien were. She wanted a rescue party. We chose to await your wise discretion. All that remains is to awaken the patient and retrieve the information."  
  
Rommie closed her eyes, well recognizing the elaborate lead up. What did they want, a nova bomb? Slipstream fighters? Lances? Use of the 'fleet? There appeared to be only one true way to find out. Nodding, she straightened. "Elsbett, we can discuss terms in private. Tyr, you will be allowed to remain with Beka. Wake her. We'll all get what we want."  
  
*  
  
Exploding suns. Grimacing, Beka Valentine lifted an arm to press it across her eyes, the pain and unfamiliar sensation searing. Gasping sharply, she jerked upright, and strong arms caught her rapid ascent.   
  
"Easy." Tyr Anasazi stared at his former crewmate. "You are still healing."  
  
"You." It was the one word she managed, but only one among thousands thought. "You bastard, Niet vulture..." Swinging out her cyborg arm, she cursed fluently when he blocked the blow.  
  
Anasazi watched her with some odd form of amused detachment. "You'd like to hurt me. Believe me when I say that I wish you could."  
  
"Someday you'll pay." She promised lightly, swiveling to glare with one good eye.  
  
He nodded. "Someday, yes, but not this day."  
  
Drained, the former mercenary captain fell back on the bed, cradling the mechanical arm, staring at it with horror. Voice shaky, she glared upward, lashing out. "You left me to die."  
  
"Forgive me, Captain Valentine, for incorrectly believing you to be a strong, durable creature unwilling to break by hand of fate. If I have disappointed you in my Nietzschean presumptions, you most certainly have disappointed me in your inferior destruction of them."  
  
"I pity you." She whispered suddenly, passionately. "I pity you every breath you take, Tyr, because none of them can sit well. Your ambitions lead you to...damn, Tyr. I don't think you're capable of love."  
  
"Oh, Captain Valentine, I assure you that I am."  
  
"Then I doubly pity the recipient." Closing her eyes, she turned away.  
  
Rommie came around the opposite side of the curtain, staring at him, eyes fathomless. "You carry your burden home, Mr. Anasazi."  
  
"Like hell." Beka bolted upright, pain wrenching across her flushed features, teeth gritted. "I'll walk."  
  
*  
"What the hell did she offer you?!" Molly rounded the console corner almost immediately as they stepped onto command deck. "You've been pulling supplies and weapons..." Falling abruptly silent, the fresh High Guard officer stared at the mutilated woman standing just inside the door.  
  
"I know I'm not worth much." Beka Valentine spoke coldly, glaring at her with one good eye. "But what I know is worth something."  
  
"That, in turn, begs a certain degree of curiosity." Rommie crossed her arms, parking herself in front of the cyborg and successfully blocking access to the rest of the command center. "It begs two specific questions, to be precise. What do you know, and can we trust you?"  
  
A flash of grim humor crossed Valentine's face. "You saved me from the Niets to ask me that?"  
  
"I saved you from the Nietzscheans because you are a friend." The avatar met the mismatched glare head on. "That, I'm afraid, doesn't necessarily cover trusting you."  
  
Beka sighed. "Looks deceive, Rommie. Under all of this, I'm still Beka Valentine. You can trust me, if I can trust you. All I ever wanted was to come home."  
  
Brief silence reigned as the near tearful remark stood, before the android nodded, reaching out a hand to touch the unchanged arm. "You have. Now, can you tell us where to find Dylan and Trance?"  
  
"I want to speak to Harper first." Valentine removed the arm, scrubbing the fleshly fingers across her face tiredly.  
  
"That won't be possible." Anasazi said flatly, coming from his shadowy retreat.  
  
"Oh, don't dictate to me, you arrogant son of a..."  
  
"Beka." Rommie stepped in front of her former first officer, tones soft, calm. "Harper is dead."  
  
Valentine slumped.  
  
*  
  
"It's very simple." Tyr leaned back against the bulkhead of the command ready room, taking in their assorted group. "We simply ask for them back."  
  
"It can't be that simple." Noguchi lifted her head incredulously.  
  
"Why do you suppose it cannot be?" He inquired. "The only use the Drago-Katzoff have for either Dylan or Gemini is the possibility of war victory they provide. We simply offer the better assistance."  
  
"The Drago-Katzoff want to destroy the Kalderans, Tyr. Taking their aces isn't going to cut the deal." Beka spoke, still avoiding looking directly at him.  
  
"What do you have in mind?" Rommie met his eyes head on.  
  
"You'll see." He promised, fingers just barely grazing her own as he moved past. "Allow me to play diplomat."  
  
*  
  
"That simple." Noguchi stated, staring at the view screen and approaching craft it showed. Turning, she lifted pleading hands to her commanding officer. "Come on, Rommie, it can't be that simple. What did he do this time?"  
  
"I have no idea." The avatar smiled darkly, edgily. "And at the moment I find it unimportant. The family is as whole as it will ever be now. Enjoy the moment, Ensign. There will be time enough for confessions later. Let's go greet the captain."  
  
* 


	3. Three

*  
Time enough for confessions later.   
  
Rommie pushed away her own input, biting down on her lower lip and staring at the closed door before her. Time, there had been more than a month of it. Did she dare break whatever brief peace they'd forged? Was it really peace at all? Could she make things any worse?  
  
Sighing, she commanded the door open, sweeping in and stopping before her captain's desk…it had been her desk, for a time…ignoring the look of rebuffing surprise he gave.  
  
"Dylan." Arms crossed behind her back in an automatic bid to military tension, she faced him squarely. "I have to speak to you about Harper's death."   
  
Hunt pulled his head up from his busywork, blue eyes squinting. "Rommie, we talked that out."  
  
"No. We didn't."   
  
He leaned back, head cocking. "Fine. Sit."  
  
She did, fingers nervously clasping.   
  
"Well, Rommie." He leaned forward, gaze boring into her own. "I can guess."  
  
"You can?" Utterly nonplused, the avatar angled her head.  
  
"It's not that difficult. I've noticed the chemistry between you and Tyr. While I can't say I really think either of you is good for the other...I can't say I don't empathize either. You and Anasazi suffered through a great deal together; you were alone on the ship together until Molly came along. Trials draw people close...when Trance and I were trapped in that hell for all those months...I broke more than one of my creeds. I can't hold you responsible for what I'm unwilling to hold myself responsible for."  
  
"You and Trance?" Processing the idea, she blinked, fingers digging into the chair arm. What horrific irony. Leave Dylan Hunt alone with the one woman he was more unlikely to fall for than his ship and he did it anyhow. Shaking the tumultuous feelings off, Rommie leaned forward. "Dylan, I have no wish to interfere in those areas of your life. This is about Tyr and I, but not in the way you might think."  
  
"Oh?" He looked faintly confused again.  
  
The avatar sighed. "Dylan, I lied to you."  
  
"Lied?" She had expected the stiffening shoulders, the flare of disappointment. Dylan Hunt took things very personally, and being misled by one of his crew was edging on deliberate backstabbing in his eyes. After Tyr and Trance, she had expected the anger. She hadn't entirely expected the tired acceptance, relief. "I see." Hunt said quietly, fingers pressing his eyes shut. Then, straightening, he managed a sad, wan smile. "Well, it can't be that bad, Rommie, you've had your share of ups and downs, but I know duty always comes first with you, at least..."  
  
Dylan Hunt, there are times I despise that arrogant Commonwealth blindness. Gritting her teeth, the android pressed forward in her story.  
  
"What she is trying to tell you, Captain Hunt, is that I murdered Mr. Harper."  
  
The deep, bored voice from the doorway startled them both. She shut her eyes.  
  
"That's not entirely true."  
  
"Of course it is, Ascendent." The Nietzschean moved forward, pausing by her side, a hand weighing down heavily on her shoulder.  
  
"I want the story. Now." Hunt was standing by that point, complaisant mood completely gone. "And no word games. Harper's death. Your logs indicate that he was accidentally killed in a struggle with Tyr."  
  
"They did struggle." His ship admitted.   
  
"But Tyr had a last minute change of heart and chose to spare his life." The captain's sardonic gaze made clear what a miracle he thought it must have been. "Harper was still panicked, and was mortally injured by Tyr in self-defense. That's your official log reading, Rommie."  
  
"I lied."  
  
"On the log?  
  
"On the log." Lips pursing, she avoided his gaze. No further words needed. A High Guard ship was to know and uphold High Guard policies always. No divergences. No excuses. To break them was unthinkable. Pax Magellanic had found that out all too quickly. She was nothing less than a traitor.   
  
If silence could kill, she would have suspected her very circuits were corroding. As was, the avatar merely sat stiffly, watching her commanding officer with thinly veiled apprehension.   
  
And he laughed. A rough hand angrily dashing across his face, Dylan Hunt leaned back, and laughed, wracking, harsh chuckles.  
  
Tyr's hands fell away from her shoulders, voice dropping into chill. "I can assure you, its no joke."  
  
"I will escort both Mr. Anasazi and myself to confinement, Captain." Standing, Rommie kept her tones formal, back rigid.  
  
"Rommie!" His shout was unexpected, exasperated, as large hands slammed down on the desk. "How the hell do you do that? One minute you make a stupid decision to rival all human stupid decisions, and then you turn around and volunteer to flagellate yourself at High Guard best. Do you have any...ANY...idea how ludicrous it is?"  
  
Her pride stung. "Technically speaking, Dylan, I made the mistake months ago, and the months since have been filled with nothing but guilt. With your return and no command duties with which to excuse myself, I have no choice but to offer myself for punishment, per your discretion. It has nothing to do with High Guard protocol and everything to do with retaining my small hoard of sanity."  
  
"Well, that's a change, anyway." He leaned back, energy apparently draining, lined eyes creasing in wry amusement.  
  
"What?"   
  
"Someone actually admitting who they are and what they're after aboard this ship." Hunt rose, staring across the desk at them. "I do assume that you've both conceded that this is my ship and that I have a right to run her?"  
  
"Oh, do spare us the Commonwealth diatribe and announce your decision." Anasazi bit out from behind her.  
  
"Very well, Tyr." Hunt smiled humorlessly. "My decision is that you wipe that cat in the cream smirk off your face and march to the command deck to man the weapons. You, Rommie, will keep the rest going. I have plotting to do."  
"But..." Perplexed, the avatar moved to interrupt, grasping his arm.  
  
He ever so coldly shook the grip off, eyes locking onto hers. "No time for theatrics, Rommie. Putting you two away isn't going to help my situation. You see me through this battle; you may still avoid a court martial. If you don't want the chance, it's the airlock. I ran out of time and patience for humanitarian justice long ago."  
  
She backed away, head lifting. "I was wrong, then."  
  
"Oh?" He watched Tyr make his exit, eyes narrowing.   
  
"I've tortured myself believing that I was the only one that had betrayed what the High Guard stood for. I was wrong. You've changed as well, Dylan."  
  
"Like daughter, like father. Like ship, like Captain." He barely glanced back as he left the room.  
  
Like daughter.   
  
Slamming a fist into the nearest bulkhead, Rommie squeezed her eyes shut. The bastard.  
  
"Rommie?" The familiar voice from the doorway interrupted her reverie. Trance stepped in, arms crossed behind her back, shoulders squared away with the cold self-assurance the avatar had come to hate since her return. Oh, why had Trance had to change too? Wasn't anything sacred anymore?   
  
Lowering her fist, she turned. "Trance."  
  
The golden girl angled her head, eyes penetrating. "I couldn't help but overhear. If Dylan's mood is any indication, you could use a friend."  
  
"Are we?"  
  
A faint, elegant nod was the answer. "Perhaps it was too strong a term after so long. Maybe you could just use a whipping post."  
  
The avatar stared. No, definitely not the old Trance. Moving closer, she squared her own shoulders. "I deserved that. Actually, I deserve more. Which, of course, is the problem."  
  
"He isn't willing to hurt you."  
  
"He's already hurt me. And I've hurt him. And you, you...you've destroyed all of us."  
  
The intercom system precluded any response. Dylan came across grimly. "Everyone report to Command. We need to talk."   
*  
"Charlemagne Bolivar is dead. Elsbett Mossadim Bolivar has chosen to attempt diplomacy with the Kalderans. However, knowing Elsbett and explosive entourages...this war will get a whole lot uglier before it's over."  
  
"Oh, no." Trance uttered softly, fingers tensing on the weapon at her hip.   
  
"What is your plan?" Tyr spoke up abruptly, crossing his arms as he leaned against the weapons console.  
  
"Elsbett has requested that the Andromeda be her transport to the Kalderan home world. I can't say I'm thrilled with the idea after her previous deceits, but the Sabra-Jaguar are part of the Commonwealth...and though it's a long shot, this might lead to some sort of peace with both groups. Rommie and I will go down planet side, try and clear her exports...just in case. We'll be back by the time Elsbett shuttles up..."  
  
"Don't be a fool. The last person to negotiate with Elsbett Mossadim is you, Captain Hunt. She swallows you whole." The Nietzschean pushed forward. "I will go."  
  
"Why should I trust you with a sensitive mission like this?" Hunt laughed briefly, eyes humorless.  
  
"If you do not begin trusting now, Captain, you may soon find yourself without anyone willing to bear your loads. I fight not only for my preservation. I'm not certain you do the same of late."  
  
"Tyr." Trance chose the moment of silence to grasp his arm, propelling the burly Nietzschean out the door with rare audacity. "I think Dylan and Rommie should be alone."  
  
Hunt stared at the closed door, eyes bemused. "One day I'll figure out where that edge came from. I sure didn't instill it."  
Rommie closed her eyes, forcing herself to rebuff the awkward attempt at normal bantering exchange. "I'm leaving ship."  
He stood, shoulders squaring. "You can't leave ship, Andromeda. You are the ship."  
  
"No." Reaching out to touch a bulkhead, she stared him down. "This is a ship, yes, your ship." Fingers moving to touch her chest, she squared her own shoulders. "I, Dylan, am an individual."  
  
He looked away. "That's only one of the many things you've been trying to tell me all along, isn't it, Rommie? Only one of the passions you had. But I suppose it's too late..."  
  
"Dylan." Extending a hand to touch his cheek, she sighed. "It was too late for you three hundred years ago."  
  
"Maybe so. Maybe so." After a moment, he moved the hand away, staring up, crystalline eyes mirroring her own pain. "I assume you'll be in Tyr's company upon your departure."  
  
"For a time…how long remains to be seen." Stepping toward the door, she hesitated, considering. "He is flawed, Dylan, horribly so. But there is nobility that calls to me, the nobility of a person who recognizes that if the war is futile, the battles are doubly so, but must be fought...for sanity's sake, if nothing else. I once cared enough to keep him aboard after his worst betrayal. That must mean something, even now. If not, nothing is sacred. Nothing."  
  
"Nothing is sacred, Rommie. Nothing." Her captain smiled grimly. "I'm just...tell me. How did he do it? How did Tyr Anasazi, the one person both of us were most unlikely to ever trust...how'd he sweep you under his thumb? I'm just trying to figure it out."  
  
Her head rose, eyes settling thoughtfully on the opposite wall. "I was alone. After you and Trance left, Harper went...Harper did not handle the loss of Beka well. He disappeared as well. I was to be left alone." Her brows knitted, eyes reflecting deep-seated anger and frustration. "I was to be completely and utterly alone. After Harper left, Tyr chose to stay aboard in lieu of his departure plans...he could have easily left, left me adrift in space, unable to navigate the slipstream. He did not. I was grateful."  
  
"You had something over him…the bones of his ancestor."  
  
"I had nothing over him. I now believe he had access all along. He had nothing to lose by leaving. I asked him to leave, planned to set a self-destruct. He refused to allow it. Naturally, I thought he was staying for his own reasons. And he was. The Andromeda is a formidable addition to any cause, and he does seem to have a cause...I did not trust him. Eventually, however, I realized that I could not even fully trust myself. After Harper returned intending to take the ship from us, after he stirred up that final argument…Tyr and I shared the guilt of the same crime, and we both knew very well how unforgiving the universe had become. We didn't need trust, Dylan. We knew then that we both sought survival, and hope for that lay in partnership."  
  
After a long moment of silence, he sighed. "You're aware that Beka and Trance plan to depart this evening, on the Maru. They said something about finding a tessarat machine."  
  
"And you are aware of what they could do with such a thing?"  
  
"Of course I am." His tones were grim, firm. "In fact, Rommie, I'm counting on them to do it. Maybe none of this will matter after all, someday, if they find one."  
  
"But that doesn't answer your question. You have no idea what to do with me."  
  
"Yes" He nodded, standing. "I do. My head says that I should throw you in the brig, or at the very least deactivate you….but you know that my heart doesn't have fortifications strong enough to allow such a cold decision. I can't hurt you; you seem to do that well enough yourself. I want you to leave, Rommie. Leave."  
  
She forced her chin up. "I'll report to the docking area immediately. If I know Tyr, and I know Tyr, he'll be leaving within the hour."  
  
"He can take Elsbett on if he likes. Just be sure he doesn't come back to my ship."  
  
"Oh, you need not worry on that account, Captain." Anasazi's voice cut in from the doorway. "I don't expect that either of us will ever grace your airlock again. Ascendent?"  
  
* 


	4. Four

*  
  
"Allow me to bid you welcome to your future home, Andromeda Ascendent." Boots stirring up dust as he stepped into the Sabra-Jaguar compound, Anasazi came to his companion's side, following her gaze up to the darkening sky.   
  
"You expect to claim all of this?" Tones amused, Rommie flattened palms against her abdomen. "More than that, you expect to claim me?"  
  
"In this day and age, no goal seems unattainable."  
  
"But look at the cost." Angling her head, she stared back at him. "Remember it, Tyr? All of the blood, the betrayal...the fact that you sleep in an inferior guest room for the night."  
  
He smiled, for the first time in years. "But not alone. Not alone."  
  
Her own smile faded. "You seem very certain of yourself."  
  
"I am." He agreed. "And I remain far more certain of you. Come, Ascendent. If the price of our betrayals must be this, I can think of no better beginning than to meet a dawn in your company."  
  
*  
  
She awoke early, and, pulling herself from bed, made way to the wall windows. Fire blazed in the sky, nothing natural.   
"Andromeda, come in."  
  
Dead silence remained in answer to the hail. Backbone prickling at the unpleasant sense of separation, the avatar sank to the floor. "Andromeda."  
  
More silence. Had Dylan cut her connection to the ship? Torn between disbelief and anger, she peered closer, taking in the distant explosion with eyes peeled to detail.   
  
Andromeda Ascendent, Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge…the sky rained metal, shards as thin and fragile as crystal.  
Wheeling, she stared at her companion as he strode back into the room from the corridor, robe pulled tight about his body. "You destroyed my family!"  
  
His gaze was dismissive, searing. "Soon, Ascendent, you'll learn to live without connections to a mother's breast. We all do. Get up."  
  
Fingers curling into the soft sand of a nearby planter, she did, lunging forward and throwing it in his face, palms slapping ineffectively against his shoulders in rage. "Dylan and Noguchi…a crew was aboard! You killed them!"  
  
"If they witnessed an end it is all the more to their benefit. Mercy killings abound of late."  
  
"Mercy?" Voice a strangled hiss, she felt her knees buckle, and he scooped her up as easily as a doll, striding towards the compound.   
  
His voice remained calm, cool. "Of course…think, Ascendent. Oddly enough, that group of misfits had become Commonwealth, but this time most certainly is not. Your idyllic textbook universe was caving back in, inch by inch. The only thing your crew was achieving was their own destruction. I merely made it painless...your enemies would have made it anything but, and the ship would only have been a tool in their hands."  
  
Still sorting through her emotions, the avatar stared out the nearby window as he sat her in a chair. "You had this planned. You sent Elsbett's ship up wired with a bomb deliberately..."  
  
"And as I recall, I also insisted that you remain here and that Trance and Rebekah take the Maru off Andromeda."  
  
"Sparing the Maru doesn't excuse the sacrifice of me, of Dylan and Noguchi, Tyr!"  
  
"No more than your compassion excused a lie to cover Mr. Harper's true end."  
  
"Don't compare yourself to me!"  
  
"No, of course not…that's my girl." He leaned against a wall, dark eyes searching her face. "Pull yourself out of that group collective. Damn the Commonwealth, damn what the ship was meant for. Be yourself. It's what you always wanted, wasn't it? You wanted Dylan. You wanted a life. You wanted your individuality. The only thing you've never wanted, Ascendent, is humanity, and for that I admire you."  
  
"What right have you to judge me, label me?" She stood, taking a menacing step forward, eyes screwing to angry slits. "When you can't even lower yourself to address me by the name I chose? Ship this, Ascendent that. Those are no longer me. My name is Rommie. It's all I have now, you know, because of you. Don't…don't even try now. Never let it pass your lips, Tyr. You aren't worthy of it. You weren't worthy to walk my decks. You were never worthy of anything we gave you, of anything you took."  
  
"Rommie." Fingers snapping around her wrists, he jerked her up to rest before him, staring down. Briefly, angrily, his mouth covered hers, teeth gnawing viciously on the all too realistic flesh layering. Momentarily his eyes revealed the disappointment; it wasn't human, wasn't organic.   
  
The salt of victory wasn't there.  
  
Grinding an arm across her mouth to brush away his taste, the avatar laughed softly.   
  
Releasing her wrists, he thrust her away. "I pity you, Ascendent."  
  
Without a look back, Anasazi rejoined the celebratory crowd.  
  
As the sunlight passed over the desert, the warship crumbled.   
  
*  
  
Hours later, as the sun finally began to slip away; she pulled herself together, striding on numb legs outside. Anasazi rested against a rock formation, hands crossed over his chest, gaze pointed somewhere amongst the stars. She looked at anything but, attempting to keep her tones even, implacable. "I want to contact the Maru."  
  
His glance drifted her way briefly. "That won't be possible."  
  
"Am I a prisoner here?"  
  
Eyes flaring with annoyance, he grabbed her arm, tugging her to his side. "The Maru slipped into Kalderan territory only moments after the Andromeda's destruction."  
  
"Beka and Trance?"  
  
"Dead, alive, it doesn't matter. Equally out of reach. There are two sides to this war, Ascendent, and they had the misfortune to fall on the side not ours."  
  
She stepped back, fingers balled, eyes squeezing shut briefly. "And what plans do you have for the Sabra-Jaguar?"  
  
"I will lead them, of course." There was no real pride in the assertion, just flat discord. "Elsbett's end and the Andromeda's destruction ultimately proved my worth. They are in chaos, have no desire to put one of their own at the top."  
  
"Then I sincerely hope the position is worth the bloody trail leading to it." Turning, she began striding away.  
  
"You can't leave!" His call broke the evening still.  
  
Pausing, she wheeled, eyes narrowed. "I ask again, am I a prisoner here?"  
  
"I had thought the position of Archduchess and war advisor might persuade you that your greatest opportunities lie here."  
  
"You destroy our family, yes, Tyr, OUR family...and the woman in your way...you destroy everything we built...and you honestly believe that we still think along the same lines. You're a fool, Tyr, and that's why I won't stay. You try to act as if there's a wonderful plan you work from, and perhaps there is, deep in your mind, but it doesn't really matter...it isn't a plan that drives you, its bloodlust and ambition. One foolish mistake in the heat of the moment that leads on to another and another...and it will be your destruction. No, Tyr. I won't stay here with you and commit to your atrocities and ignore the little affairs you would have on the side. I would be your Archduchess and your war advisor, but that would be all...a pleasantly made up machine to run your household and your battles while you found others to slake your interests and continue your bloodline. You forget, Anasazi…I know myself to have been created for far, far more."  
  
His tones, when they came, were quiet, subdued, and she paused in her steps away to listen. "Contrary to your low opinion, I hope that destroying you will never be a trophy upon my mantle."  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Elsbett's shuttle was wired for a small explosion, nothing more. The damage the destruction of her little boat should have caused to the Andromeda was minimal. I can only theorize she caught my intent and augmented the explosives herself. She does seem to like carrying death along on her journeys. But, by all means, place the blame fully on my shoulders. My bloodlust and ambition certainly started the mess. Think what you will of me."  
  
"Frankly, Tyr, I don't know what to think of you." Hesitating, the android reached out a hand to touch his arm. "All I do know at the moment is that I betrayed the people I was closest to over and over for you, and now it seems you've led them to miserable ends, directly or indirectly. I know that you want all the power in your hands, perhaps for the very undead Tamerlane's sake, perhaps for your own, and I know that the war you intend to instigate with the Kalderans will be no less destructive than the war leading to the first Long Night. Regardless of my thoughts about you, I simply can't stand aside and let it come to that again with no fight. I am a warship."  
  
"Then try being a warship for the winning side for a change, Ascendent." He suggested dryly, striding towards her. "You fight for morality? Fine. I can assure you that my brand of it is the best you're likely to find in this age. The Kalderans certainly won't support your ideals of a free and profitable universe. They will seek to obliterate every dissenting inferior within reach...and should they win, the reach will indeed be far."  
  
"And you expect me to believe you and your ideas of a unified Nietzschean empire any better, after Beka, after Harper, after this?"  
  
His shoulders stiffened, eyes cooling. "Very good, you've learned your tactics well. I can only say that I do believe they'll be shamefully wasted should you abandon what I offer now."  
  
"I happen to be familiar with both shame and waste." Her tones were low, jagged. "You were a very good teacher. Unfortunately, I've outgrown you. Goodbye, Tyr."  
  
His grip was abrupt, rough. "Ascendent..."  
  
Her frustration grew, fist balling to slap ineffectively against his chest. "Damn you, Tyr. What is it you want with me?"  
  
"What do I…" His laughter was sharp. "I want to protect you, of course. You are a magnificent specimen, and may soon be all that remains of the glorious Commonwealth. You may be all that remains of any civilization. I am trying in every way that I know to apologize. I am trying to better matters."  
  
"You can't protect a warship from war." Throwing a hand up to shove the hair from her face, the avatar stared at him.   
"Yes, I admit it. I am a warship. I'll never be an individual. Someone always has to be in control, or I lose it. Well, the control won't be yours, Tyr, I can assure you of that."  
  
"I don't seek to protect you from war, only from yourself. And I will. You'll never leave orbit."  
  
"Andromeda no longer exists and if Rommie doesn't bring her family back, she'll be worth nothing to you. Worth nothing at all, Tyr…and you of all people must despise worthless. Let me leave, go retrieve the Maru and my crew. I will come back. And I may stay. But only if you let me go now."  
  
"I don't believe you, avatar." He crossed beefy arms, smiling grimly.  
  
"Tyr, if I had wanted to escape you, I would have self-destructed long ago, when it was just you and I on Andromeda. It was my choice then to accept you. It's my choice now. Take it or leave it."  
  
He stared wordlessly for a moment, before nodding curtly and turning away. "I still hold you to be lying, but very well. Go, but here." The Nietzschean roughly fastened a familiar bracelet to her arm, stepping back.  
  
"You'd lower yourself to give me a…what is this, a bonding helix?"  
  
"Something more as well…the armlet has specially designed transmission devices integrated into the metal. You may send a signal at any time, a single signal, from any distance. I will hear you."  
  
*  
  
Big smokescreen, little fire.   
  
One of Dylan Hunt's many simple battle techniques echoed through Rommie's head as she stared at her Kalderan host. She felt a bizarre urge to smile. Of course the Andromeda wasn't gone. Of course, there could be no smiles. The Kalderans wouldn't understand. She lifted a brow, turning her attentions back to the present.  
  
"The Andromeda Ascendent is utterly useless to you without my assistance. Your prisoners are currently the only beings aside from me who know the proper access codes to the information you so desperately want, and I can assure you that they will not talk. Captain Hunt will hold his word under torture or death. You've only one other option. Me." Smiling edgily, the avatar paced in a tight circle around him. "Up until the moment of her destruction, Elsbett's shuttle was rigged and transferring duplicate records from Andromeda to a secured location on the Sabra-Jaguar home world...and thereby directly into my continued grasp. You can't access the home world, of course, but I still retain the records...and only if I choose to give them to you will you get them."  
  
"You're offering to work for the enemy? Amusing attempt, avatar, but one no intelligent being would fall for."  
  
"I'll work neither for nor against the enemy." Planting the heels of her palms on his armrests, she cocked a brow. "Only myself. I want your assurance that Dylan Hunt and Molly Noguchi will be escorted safely out of your territory...erase their memories if you like, give them a fresh start. Afterward, we may talk. Even should I decide not to share, you do have the option of slaughtering me for the cause. I think it might put the new Sabra-Jaguar leader out quite a bit. Cause an all out war. You can't beat Tyr Anasazi on his own territory, and you most certainly cannot continue your spiral of control without Sabra-Jaguar support."  
  
"And without the assurance of your Captain's safety, or your own?"  
  
"The helix I wear will automatically transmit a signal directly to Anasazi. Whether Dylan and I remain will be moot. You won't either, he will seek vengeance. And he will win." Holding out a hand, she offered her weapon. "You have my word and the advantage. Just let me see Dylan, then release him with his ship and officer. I'm yours."  
  
"Very well." The alien nodded. "Very well."  
  
*  
  
He was battered, bruised, but awake, sprawled on the floor of the small cell they had thrown him in, and looked up as she entered.   
  
"Dylan."  
  
His smile was wry, wan, pained as he stood, leaning against the wall. "Rommie. It's over, isn't it?"  
  
"No. No." Stepping forward, she touched his cheek, faintly disappointed at the faint recoil. So he still hadn't forgiven her. But then, she still hadn't forgiven herself. "It's only begun. The Kalderans are releasing you, Dylan, and releasing the ship to you. Take her...me...and leave here. Go as far away as you can, and try to be happy without the Commonwealth. I know you won't succeed, but try."  
  
He nodded slowly, the dying sunlight shifting in through the barred window and casting shadows over his face. "Why come now, after all we've been through?"  
  
"Because we've been through it together, and because I love you. You always were my heart. And I cannot forget that. I can't erase the past, I'm not certain even Trance and Beka managed to make it a better one, but I can do one last duty. Let me."  
  
"I'm going to miss you, Rommie." His fingers brushed a strand of hair from her forehead. "In fact, I think I'm going to miss all of you. All of you."  
  
Closing her eyes, she felt the touch recede, and sighed, reopening them to move out the door. "Goodbye, Dylan."   
  
*  
  
"We've kept our word." Little more than an hour later, the Kalderan leader joined her at the station observatory, watching as the Andromeda slipstreamed away.   
  
"Yes." Flattening palms across her abdomen, the avatar smiled. "And it's a pity you'll never have the opportunity to prove yourself capable of it again."  
  
All semblance of amiability disappeared. "What have you planned?"  
  
"I've planned nothing." She cocked her head, finger pointing a line out into the stars. "I can only tell you what my sensors tell me. An entire fleet of Sabra-Jaguar warships seem to be approaching on an attack vector. It appears that a new empire is rising, and they simply don't want the Kalderans on the charter. And you've just released your last hope. All the secrets in my database are utterly worthless to you without a ship to complement them. It's over. It's over."  
  
* 


	5. Five

"Dammit!" Ineffectually slamming her good hand against a console, Beka Valentine turned, mismatched eyes sweeping through her ship. "Trance, what the hell is happening?"  
  
Trance appeared around the corner, golden skin tinged with the faint sheen of sweat that indicated excitement, heels bouncing lightly on the floor. "Beka, the tessarat machine is working."  
  
"Now?! We're in the middle of a battlefield! Can they even see us with that thing on?"  
  
"I don't think so." The alien shook her head.  
  
"Well, I sure as hell hope we're as insubstantial as invisible, because we're dead in space." Valentine snorted, rising from her seat and jabbing a finger to point over Gemini's shoulder. "And what's that?"  
  
"What?" Turning, Trance let a brow slowly rise. "Monsoon season somewhere?"  
  
"Aboard my ship?! Again?!"  
  
"Well, calm down, it's gone now, Beka." The alien patronized. "We'll just go check it out. Everything looks normal again."  
  
"I hear Kalderans."  
  
"Kalderans?" Even Trance looked unnerved. "We're being boarded? Oh, Beka, that isn't good. Too many factors are interacting at the same point..."  
  
"We'll just go check it out." Her companion agreed curtly, pulling a gun from the weapons locker. Hesitating, she paused at the door. "And Trance, I hope your machine is doing its job and I never see you again."  
  
"Oh!" The gold alien shrugged, lips curving into a fairly dangerous smile. "I hope to see you looking a lot better."  
  
"Thanks." Beka muttered, waving her artificial arm. "I go one way, you go the other. Got it?"  
  
"Got it." Trance headed off down the corridor at a fast run, hair swinging.  
  
Shuddering at the advancing noise, Valentine sighed, and prepared for war.  
  
*  
  
Trance Gemini was feeling better by the blow. Swinging an arm out to capture a keening Kalderan, she shook the creature lightly before kicking him away. He fell with a notable thump to the deck, glassy-eyed. Tugging her blade free and turning for more, she focused her mind, all traces of earlier sportiveness gone. And that was for Beka, and this is for Rommie...then, senses aching, she whirled. "Behind you!"  
  
"Trance?!" A very much better looking and understandably stunned Beka Valentine peered at her, the girl at her side gaping. Oh, me, she thought, quickly reconciling the long forgotten differences, and smiling.  
  
"Beka, I'd forgot how beautiful you were."  
  
"Uh...thanks." Beka murmured, as her companion pushed forward.  
  
The younger version of herself stared. "You're...me. From the future."  
  
Trying to wipe the cat with the canary smile that inevitability came to her face with victory, Gemini stared at her younger self, smiling tenderly, repeating familiar words. "More or less."  
  
"Did everything turn out the way it was supposed to?" The other looked so nervous, so agitated.  
  
Trying for gentleness, Trance sighed. "No, things are bad, and they're getting worse. I made a lot of bad mistakes."   
Again.  
  
"Are we going to lose?"  
  
"At best, we're not going to win. You know what we have to do." Not that it would make matters any easier on either of them.  
  
"Is it the only way?" Her doubts seemed to be mirrored.  
  
"There is one perfect possible future, but I haven't seen it yet."  
  
Beka cut in from the side. "Um, could someone provide me with a translation please?"  
  
The younger girl turned, facing her companion with a shy smile. "Beka, I have to go. But don't worry, I'm not really leaving, I'm just...changing. Everything will be okay." Turning back to give her older self one last shy glance, the purple being began to walk away, disappearing.  
  
"Where did she go?  
  
The older Gemini squared her shoulders. "She didn't go anywhere. She grew up. She's me. Let's go."  
  
*  
  
It's over, it's over.  
  
Gripping the cold metallic railing before her, Rommie watched the sleek Nietzschean fighters soar over Kalderash. A building there, a bunker there…residential complexes, public parks. Abandoned fields, well-traveled transport expanses. Mentally, her mind catalogued every strike. They were leaving nothing to chance.   
  
The Kalderan Minister had left moments ago, for safety, she presumed, though doubting there was such a thing. It was war, and the warship within her reveled in it.   
  
Eventually, solitary steps clanged up the narrow staircase. She smiled. Of course he hadn't trusted her to return. "It's almost as if you read my mind, Tyr."  
  
"I was hooked up to the slipstream often enough." The Nietzschean paused just behind her, releasing his weapon to just one hand and encircling her helix bound forearm with the other. His lips moved ever so slightly over the crown of her head, and she closed her eyes. His chuckle was soft, victorious. "Come, Archduchess Ascendent, lets get you home."  
  
*  
  
"Breathe vacuum, Kaldie." Thrusting her last casualty into the Maru's airlock and flushing him out, Beka Valentine glared daggers through the view ports, dropping her weapon and sliding down into the pilot's chair. It was quiet, too quiet. Where had they all gone? Just disappeared? Had Trance made it? And Rommie and Dylan and all of them...Kalderash was minced, that much sensors told her. But where was the Andromeda?  
  
"Um...Beka?" The familiar voice from around the corner made her bolt upright.  
  
"Dammit, Trance, don't tell me it didn't work..."  
  
"It...it worked." A very young, very purple Trance moved around the corner, both hands extended, a faintly bemused, faintly appealing smile on her face.   
  
"Trance." Struggling to take it in, Valentine ran her flesh hand across her face. This new arrival was almost more painful to see than her own future counterpart had been so long ago. She wondered if her Trance had thought the same about the pretty, deborgified Captain Valentine.  
  
"Oh, Beka." Shaking off her fears, the young Trance dashed forward, alternately hugging and patting, babbling and examining. "She didn't warn me it would be this bad, and she should...I should...have warned you, but...oh, Beka!"  
  
"I'm...glad to see you." Squeezing her eyes shut, the older woman fought back tears, lowering the hand to stroke the lavender skin. "Boy, am I glad to see you."   
  
*  
Open air Kalderash was a mess of steaming metal and acrid smoke. Pausing by the entrance to Tyr's requisitioned craft, Rommie took in the horizon, unable to completely erase the final vestiges of regret. There had been innocents destroyed. There always were. Glancing over her shoulder, she shook off the brawny hands nudging her further into the craft. "Tyr, did you leave anything intact?"  
  
He shrugged, following her gaze. "I'm afraid it was leveled."  
  
"Good."  
  
"Good?" Faint bemusement flashed in the tired, proud eyes. "Somehow, Andromeda, that sounds very unlike you."  
  
"Well." Rising on her toes to press her own lips to his, she smiled dangerously. "With nothing left there's nothing left to suffer under your madman's thumb, Anasazi. Come, Tyr. Let's go home."  
  
*  
  
"The Kalderans are gone." Finally pulling back from the awkward hug, Trance Gemini hurried over to a console, alternately taking readings and glancing up at the view port. "And Nietzschean fighters are retreating too."  
  
"Can they see us yet?" Beka nudged her aside.  
  
The purple alien shook her head. "I think the singularity might be working with the tessarat machine to obscure us. But I don't know for how long, the tessarat machine is still going...and Beka, I'm reading the Andromeda."  
  
"Can you get a channel?"  
  
"I can try." Delicate purple fingers flew over buttons and switches. Trance looked up, nodding. "I think so."  
  
"Andromeda, this is the Eureka Maru." Leaning over the console, Beka searched the scattered debris with both eyes and equipment. "Andromeda, do you hear?"  
  
"This is the Andromeda." The familiar, if curt voice cut through. "Am I to assume you plan assistance?"  
  
"I never liked the non-avatar you." The cyborg muttered lightly. "Andromeda, listen to me. I need status reports. Dylan, Rommie, ship. In that order, please."  
  
A brief pause ensued, before the voice came again, slightly more civil. "Dylan is off ship."  
  
"That isn't possible. Surely Rommie didn't let the Kalderans keep him." Trance piped up, eyes darkened with concern.  
  
"No, she did not." Andromeda agreed. "He was returned unharmed. Ensign Noguchi is currently en route through the armada in a shuttle. However, an outer hull breach required a space walk. Dylan went. The droids and bots are...out of order."  
  
"All right." Beka rubbed her forehead with a metal finger, wincing at the scraping sensation. "Rommie?"  
  
"As far as my sensors can tell, she is unharmed...but not aboard. My avatar has elected to return to the Sabra-Jaguar with Tyr Anasazi…if one can use free will in the same sentence as Anasazi."  
  
"Damn that android, and damn him." Valentine swore lightly. Then, after a long moment of dead silence, the redhead met the glance of her companion, jabbing the communications panel. "Andromeda, where'd you go?"  
  
"One moment..." Andromeda fell from distraction to something very like her avatar's brand of horror. "Beka, sensors read a singularity!"  
  
"What do you mean a singularity…as in an event horizon singularity? That isn't possible, we're nowhere near any charted black hole...Trance, what did you DO?"  
  
"I didn't do anything!" Trance stepped backwards, raising both hands. "At least not this me, and not that I know of."  
  
"Oh, you..." Beka turned back to the channel. "Andromeda, call Dylan in immediately and high tail it out of here. We'll follow."  
  
"That won't be possible." Andromeda responded in turn. "Beka, Dylan lost his tether."  
  
"Oh, no." Trance uttered softly.  
  
"What is it with him and black holes?!" Her companion demanded, slamming her cyborg fist down on the console. Gathering her nerves, she once again pressed a thumb to her forehead, considering. "Trance, your teleportation device, can you activate it?"  
  
"Beka, it isn't safe..."  
  
"We're not sending a person. I want you to send the tessarat machine over there to Andromeda. The Maru has more flexibility, and I don't want to risk that thing hurting it. Sorry, Andromeda."  
  
"Unnecessary." Andromeda cut back in. "Just haul him to safety, Beka."  
  
"I will. I will." Moving to the storage locker, Beka fished out the specially altered EVA suit she'd caved in to for her arm. With Trance's help, she was in it quickly, and connected the towing cable securely. "Ready. Trance, I want you to go teleport that damned machine and be ready to reel us in."  
  
*  
  
"Beka!" It was long moments later that Trance came across urgently through the EVA helmet. "We have to slipstream now, the tessarat machine is unraveling Andromeda's systems...she's going to drift into the singularity! You have to hurry..."  
  
"Crap." Wrestling with the tangled cables, Beka squinted through the visor, once again cursing the implants. High technology, bull. Sighing, she rested her visor against Dylan's for a moment, peering in desperately. Was he even still alive, in there? Could he be? Could she live with cutting him loose not knowing?  
  
No, she concluded, gripping his line hook more strongly and pulling it as close to her own as possible. The switch would have to be fast, before they both floated away from the tow cable. She maneuvered the free, glove-clad human hand to her suit, unfastening the link quickly and forcing it onto his hook. "Bet you weren't that easy to dress as a kid." Captain Valentine muttered, staring out around them.   
  
Closing her eyes briefly, she sighed. "Trance, I've disconnected myself from the tow line and hooked Dylan on. Trying to pull us both in will take up too much power and time, so I'm going to let go. You pull him in and do what you can...after you slipstream away. I know you don't like to, but you can do it."  
  
"Beka, the black hole will suck you in and tear you to pieces." Trance seemed upset, but calm. Maybe the old command bark she'd used on the Maru so long ago still worked.  
  
"So I'll get a real up close and personal tour." Beka put more steel in the tone. "Look, Trance, I'm ready to go wherever this damned universe wants to send me. I'm cyborg, and I always hated cyborg. They give me the creeps...I give myself the creeps. Dylan could never be accused of not liking himself. I figure the universe needs that arrogance about now. Go, Trance. Get the hell out of here. Please."   
  
Turning her head away, she peered into the expanses of the hole, unwilling and unable to bear the pain of seeing her ship and family leave without her. Within seconds, Dylan began to drift back in towards the Maru, and soon enough the slam of the airlock echoed through the helmet speakers.  
  
"I got him, Beka." Trance said unnecessarily, tones devoid of all cheer.  
  
"Then go."  
  
"Beka..."  
  
"Damn, Trance, go!" Fighting the tears that threatened her one eye, Valentine all but shouted the order.  
  
"Yes, yes, we're going." A flurry of activity filled the speakers, before Trance finally settled down and spoke. "Beka, I'm in the pilot's seat now, and about to start the slipstream."  
  
"You're never going to forgive me for this, are you, kiddo?"  
  
"No." Gemini agreed. "And neither will Dylan."  
  
"Then don't tell him. For God's sake, Trance, don't tell him. Protect him."  
  
"I will." The little voice got smaller. "I will. Goodbye, Beka."  
  
"Goodbye, purple monkey." Lifting her metal hand in mock salute, Beka finally turned her head to see her ship slipstream away. All alone now, Valentine, she chided herself.  
  
"No." Another voice cut through the speakers. Andromeda, Trance must have jury-rigged the EVA channel. "Not alone."  
  
"Andromeda, I can't think of anyone I'd like to meet my just rewards with more."   
  
"Rewards are never just, Beka." The prim tones responded. "Only our deserved punishments."  
  
"Okay, so I was asking for that."   
  
"No, you weren't." Andromeda hesitated. "Beka, I estimate the time of my destruction to be within the next two minutes. I could attempt a series of smaller detonations in order to move closer to your location...."  
  
"It beats being turned into a spaghetti noodle by black hole suction all alone." Trying to keep her tones light, the former first officer watched her ship straggle closer. Andromeda finally stopped, facing bow to nose with her crewmate. A small sigh echoed through the speakers. "Thank you, Beka."  
  
"There's nothing for it." Closing her eyes, Valentine sighed, and allowed the pulling forces to erase all other thought.  
  
There was peace. And it was good.   
  
*  
  
Fire and brimstone…Rommie had never identified with the ancient Earth phrase before. Unfortunately, she thought, changes seemed to be abounding.  
  
Slipping from beneath Tyr Anasazi's arm, she pulled a sheet around her body in a ridiculous front of modesty; probably one Dylan had instilled, and moved towards the colossal expanse of windows to the rear of the Sabra-Jaguar leader's suite. The dawn was scarlet, blazing heat and light. She curled a fist and slammed it into the nearest window, marveling at the durability of the material and the facade of weakness it offered her.  
  
"Ascendent?" Tyr moved up from behind, a hand snaking out to halt a second attack, voice atypically concerned.   
"It's the ship. I...it...is gone. I can tell."  
  
"I'm not certain what you want me to say." He appeared genuinely startled, and perhaps, perhaps a little regretful.   
  
"That it wasn't in vain?" Sweeping past him, she moved off to dress.   
  
"I happen to be doing the best I can with a very unpleasant situation." He pointed out curtly.  
  
"Then do more." Pausing in the wardrobe doorway, she looked back. "Tyr, just find out if any of them made it."  
  
"My best." He echoed, not very reassuringly, pulling on his own garb and striding out into the hallway.   
  
The avatar slid to the floor and cried.  
  
*  
  
"Rommie…Rommie, listen to me. Rommie, I need you. Rommie! I know you can hear, you never stop hearing. Fine, be that way. I'll just sit here and be quiet too. Rommie...how can you be so quiet? How can you be so empty?"  
  
The litany showed no signs of stopping. In fact, it seemed to be repeating with little breath between, a considerable endeavor for any non-artificial intelligence. It also seemed to be directed to provoke response, preferably acknowledgment. The Andromeda Ascendent's avatar released a small sigh. It had worked.  
  
Opening her eyes, she allowed the optical setup a moment to adjust to the sunlight pooled bedroom she and her companion were seated face to face in. Within seconds, the shadows abated, and Trance Gemini came into clear view, smile burgeoning, arms flinging out to pull the android in for a hug. "Oh, Rommie." Trance prattled.  
  
Wrong. Odd. Rommie frowned, disengaging the arms and glancing down at them. "This isn't right. You were gold the last time I saw you. And you had long outgrown litanies."  
  
"Yes, well." Delicate purple hands clasped, dark eyes shining with understanding and pleading warmth. "You see, that was my future self. I come from the past."  
  
"What? Again?"   
  
"Oh, you wouldn't know, would you? I'm so sorry, Rommie, but so much has happened, I barely understand it myself, I hope the other me does, but in the meantime I'm stuck here trying to help everyone and what a mess it is, Rommie."  
  
"You can say that again." The android gingerly touched her face, feeling for damage.  
  
"I was so afraid they had done something bad to you, Rommie, when you wouldn't speak to me..."  
  
"Trance." She cut in swiftly. "Did Dylan survive?"  
  
"Yes." Trance nodded urgently. "I saved him, and he's going to be okay, Rommie, after he gets treatment, he's just a little out of it. He..."  
  
"No, don't do that." Still trying to fit all the drifting pieces of her universe together, Rommie shook the girl's shoulder as the small lavender chin began quivering. It had been years since she had seen any weakness of that sort in Trance Gemini, and she frankly did not feel up to readjusting. "I don't want to hear any more. Listen to me, Trance. I have no clear idea how you got to your future, nor do I really feel like thinking too deeply on it, but I do want you away from this particular locale."  
  
"But Rommie, if I go..."  
  
"Trance, if you stay you'll only have very bad possibilities to choose from. That's a promise." Losing her patience, the avatar glared.  
  
"Not necessarily..."  
  
"I didn't ask you to pick amongst possibilities, Trance. Now I mean it, go. The Maru is still intact, isn't it?"  
  
The young Trance bit her lip. "It's bad, Rommie. We've lost a lot of important equipment already, and the AI program we installed from Andromeda's file copies is gone."  
  
"Gone?" For a bare second, Rommie was numbed. Despite her newfound freedom from feeding off a ships energy, she had felt...connected...to some part of her former ship as long as the AI program had been on the Maru. All of the years as a self-contained android personality hadn't quite prepared her for the idea of completely losing her sisters.   
  
"Gone." Trance confirmed with the blandness only a creature who died and repeatedly came back could ever muster.   
  
"The Maru still works, but without personality. Beka wrestled the systems into working before I changed places with the other me, but now she's dead, and I don't know how long I can keep her work up..."  
  
"Great." The android muttered. "Bring the Maru down, Trance. We can store it. I'll provide you with a new vessel if you want. Call it a gift of my little empire."  
  
"An empire?" Trance sat back, eyes widening. "Rommie, what did you do?"  
  
"Very simply, Trance, I joined hands with Anasazi."  
  
"Oh, Rommie." Trance breathed, staring at her friend. "Why?"  
  
The android stared ahead, voice modulating to pure coldness. "He betrayed us. He betrayed the Commonwealth, he...he betrayed Harper, and Dylan, and Beka. But he has everything I need, and...we do work well together. I trust him to adhere to my wishes as far as he possibly can."  
  
She sensed more than saw Trance reach out, a small purple hand stroking her shoulder. "Tell me the whole story, Rommie, about what happened to everyone."  
  
"I can't."  
  
"Of course you can...just think of me as your child...waiting for a bedtime story."  
  
"Trance, even were I able to have children, I most certainly wouldn't use my past as slumber notes." Straightening back up, Rommie sighed again. "Not that the standard applies. I'm a machine. Children will never happen. And he knows that as well, yet it doesn't matter, if only because of Tamerlane. With his bloodline practically secured, Anasazi can afford his negligent little...dalliances. Pets. He need not expect anything critical of them, or respect them." Briefly, her eyes shut, head thrown back to bump against the pristine metal wall. "I want you to go, Trance. Take Dylan and somehow escape this. Tyr and I'll be combining the prides under Tamerlane's name and, hopefully, a Commonwealth charter, as best as I can, but it will take time, and more blood. I don't want yours and his amongst it."  
  
The sharp, thick voice of a guard cut in from the doorway. "It's time."  
  
"Time? For what?" Trance moved between them, large eyes flickering with apprehension.   
  
Rommie shook her head slightly. "I suppose its time to be recognized as consort to the new Nietzschean leader, Trance. Bloody ascension, but one I can only hope will someday lead to the Commonwealth Dylan wanted so much."  
  
"No." The purple being broke out. "Rommie, you can't let them...they'll ruin you."  
  
"If they do, I deserve it." Standing, Rommie cupped the seeming child's face in her hands, meeting the dark, infinite eyes.   
"Trance, you've already helped me far more than you can ever understand simply by being here...both at this hour and at this time in your past. That future version of yourself has an agenda, and I trust her explicitly with it, because she's you. She won't fail a third time. Whatever happens here, everything will be better in the new timeline she creates, it has to be. And that's all I need to know. You don't worry about me. You worry about yourself, and take care of Dylan."  
  
Stepping back, the avatar nodded to the guard and followed him out the door. And somehow, she didn't look back.  
  
"I will, Rommie. I will." Trance promised softly.   
  
* 


	6. Six

*  
  
"You're killing my people."  
  
Dylan Hunt stared at the creature before him. Unbelievable, he thought. "No." Finally, his voice came, steady and unyielding. "No, I'm not. You are. They are. Your people are killing themselves, and you can't help them. You screwed up somewhere. And you want someone to blame it on. God knows, I don't exactly reproach you. Bearing the weight of the universe does tend to bring out the ugly in us all."  
  
"You have no idea what you're talking about." The delicate blonde in the white dress wheeled, pacing the room.  
  
"If I had shot you..." His smile was quirky, humorless. "Would you have stayed dead?"  
  
"Dylan!" Turning, she stared at him.   
  
"It's an honest question, considering what you are, who you are." Glancing around, he shook his head. "It's a damn good illusion. Ethan was a damn good illusion. Or was he? Did he just not exist, or did you do away with him?"  
  
Something seemed to die in the brilliant blue eyes, and almost immediately they transformed into inky darkness. The voice lowered, retaining the same girlish lilt, but of a more familiar type. "You don't understand, Dylan. To my kind creation and destruction are of the same coin. Everything is illusion. Everything can be born and destroyed at our hands, if we make the right choices. I made bad ones; bad mistakes that made everybody mess up. And I can't fix them here. In another universe, maybe I did…but not here. I made things much worse. We just have to live with it. And I wanted you to be able to...I wanted to take care of you like I promised. I just forgot that the one thing beyond my kind is love." Turning, she sat on the floor.  
  
"Trance." The name made her jerk, and he straightened, somehow both relieved and disappointed by the affirming reaction.   
  
She inhaled, gaze straight ahead. "How did you know?"  
  
"Aside from the melt down?" Sitting by her side, he considered. "I guess it was the little details. Your voice…not totally Trance, but close enough at times to warrant curiosity. Your innate habit of anticipating exactly what it is that makes me tick, that ability to trigger just the right memories. The eyes, such alien eyes, and the damned pin on my tunic. Your tattoo pattern, isn't it? Very obvious. Almost as if you wanted me to figure it out. I think you did. I think you wanted someone to protect you as much as you've been protecting me."  
  
Her smiled was edgy. "You were all my responsibility. I was supposed to save you."  
  
"And you've tried for the past few years. But you're right." His voice was quiet. "Happiness isn't enough for me. Not when it's at the expense of my family. You don't want this any more than I do...it's tearing you apart. Whatever promises you made have long out-lived their worth. We have to accept the universe we live in. Let go of the bogus dreams. Let go. For once in your life, lose control, Trance."  
  
"I lost control." She remarked. "And we lost everything."  
  
"Look, Trance." Gripping the illusory human arm, he tugged her around to face him. "Maybe this universe isn't perfect. Maybe I can't even make it good. But I can make it better than what it is now, if I try. Someone's been keeping up the facade of a High Guard, it's a start. We just help them."  
  
"I'm not very certain you'll want to." Her lips pursed, expression taking on a very familiar concentration. "Dylan, the High Guard leaders are Tyr and Rommie."  
  
His expression shuttered.  
  
"You remember."  
  
"Every moment, I'm afraid." A wry, self-castigating smile crossed his lips. Hunt sighed, deeply, and then released her arm.   
  
She considered, her head lowered, cloud of pale hair flying loose. "I'm sorry. I could still bring back Ethan."  
  
He touched her shoulder, sifting trembling fingers through the mass of blonde ash, shaking his head. "But it wouldn't be the same, would it? Trust is something you earn."  
  
"Then give me the chance."  
  
His response was immediate. "I'm not certain I can give any of you the chance again."  
  
She glanced up at him, shoulders huddled together, brows knitted. "You know that's really not fair. I'm not the Trance you think I am. But then again, maybe I'm not even the Trance I think I am anymore. I've been living in this silly illusion for so long..."  
  
"So take it off."  
  
She managed an enigmatic, wry twist of the lips. "I really can't do that now. What would poor Ethan think?"  
  
"I thought we agreed he was an illusion best left alone."  
  
"Dylan..." A little of the impatience of his golden Trance and Liandra began to creep back into the formerly childishly, remorseful tones. "It isn't that simple anymore. I can destroy what *I* create permanently, but *you* and I created Ethan. He's only half mine, no real illusion. Our son is half human. I can't make him go away for good, and it was really selfish of me to make him go away at all."  
  
"So I really have a son." Dylan absorbed the fact, eyes crinkling in bemused amazement.   
  
"Yes, you do." She touched his shoulder, fingers morphing just ever so slightly into a familiar gold tint. "But it won't be enough, will it?"  
  
"I have to go see Rommie." He continued; gaze distant and absorbed in thought. "And Tyr as well, I suppose. I'd be surprised if either of them ever wants to lay eyes on me again, but I have to try. And who else...Molly?"  
  
"Captain of the High Guard flagship."  
  
"I knew she could do it." Brief peace flashed in Hunt's eyes. "Rev Bem?"  
  
"He acts as Rommie's advisor. He...uh...pulls her one way when Tyr is jerking her the other. At least that's how she puts it."  
  
"Bless him for being her heart." Dryly spoken, the words nonetheless echoed gratefully. "What about Beka, and the ship?"  
  
"Oh." She hadn't wanted that to come up.  
  
"Trance?" His tones sharpened.  
  
She sighed slightly. "Dylan, the Andromeda really was lost in a black hole. I wasn't lying."  
  
"And Beka was aboard her." He shut his eyes, tones growing wearied.  
  
"Actually." She admitted, hoping Beka would understand the broken promise. "Beka was outside her, in an EVA suit. Saving you. She unhooked her tow line, Dylan; I couldn't pull you both in before the black hole's gravity trapped us all. I'm sorry."  
  
"Don't be." Voice rough, he lifted both hands to pull her in for a hug, and the alien recognized for the first time that she was shaking, and how utterly scared she was he'd reject her. "Don't be." He repeated; voice as soothing as he could make it, strained. "It's over, Trance. It's all over."  
  
*  
  
The desert edifice from which both the Commonwealth and the combined forces of the Nietzschean prides operated was vast, clean, and airy. Glancing back briefly, Dylan caught the reassuring smile Liandra...no, make that Trance...shot at him, and settled into a more placid frame of mind. Smile breaking, he took the arms of the Magog stepping towards him.   
  
"Rev Bem."  
  
"Dylan." The alien Wayist acknowledged, eyes saying perhaps more than the single word could have ever encompassed.  
  
"Captain Hunt." Familiar, politely restrained tones echoed from nearby shadows, and Tyr Anasazi stepped forward.   
  
"Tyr." Halting in his tracks, Hunt stared at the man who had always been so much more than crewmember or nemesis to them all. Wears power well, he thought with amused savagery. Will play humble host in exchange for absolution of past sins.  
  
The Nietzschean parted his lips to speak, then clearly back-pedaled, instead smiling darkly, briefly, nodding his head towards the vast building behind him. "I believe that what you are looking for is within. Her gratification at this reunion extends to all of us, I am certain."  
  
"Well, Tyr, from you, that's something. Are things that simple, then?" Eyes bearing down on Anasazi's face, the High Guard captain schooled his tones to softness.  
  
The Nietzschean shrugged shoulders, brows lifting expressively. "Things have apparently never been more simple, Dylan."  
  
"Go on." Trance said encouragingly, touching his back.   
  
Once again, he fought back a wince, wondering just what it was about her small, intimate touches that suddenly sent him into automatic recoil. Hell, they hadn't bothered him for years...hadn't bothered him at all, unless in the most shameful ways. She's not my Trance, he realized, the idea taking root and refusing to let go. Not the Trance I spent time with in the mists, not the Trance all grown and ready to be a lover and a companion, not the Trance who seemed...older. Knowing. An equal. A better, a guide.  
  
Not the Trance who had abandoned him without a second thought to pursue a mission she had already failed at once, abandoned what small pleasure she might have found with him to make sure the relationship need never come about in a better future.   
  
No, he sighed. This Trance, the one who hid behind illusions and self-doubt, wasn't his Trance. The universe had won another round, and somehow, it didn't matter. He regretted very little now, except that she, the ancient one, was out there, somewhere, and alone.   
  
Just to assure that he wouldn't be, in this universe or any other she could get a grasp on.  
  
Turning, he gripped delicate elbows, spinning away from the Magog and Nietzschean and well out of hearing. "Thank you."  
  
Eyes lighting vividly, his alien companion smiled, a peculiar peace shining through the elegant human exterior. "Go on to her, Dylan. You've been without your soul and Rommie her heart long enough."  
  
"Tell Anasazi that." He muttered.  
  
"Careful, he might hear you." Tyr's voice drifted from behind, liberally threaded with amusement. "And take righteous offense. I do not believe that you will find your avatar in any worse condition than when she last left your side, Captain Hunt. Nor do I believe you will find her unhappy."  
  
"Just unappreciated?"  
  
"Oh, very appreciated. Ascendent is satisfactory in every way."  
  
Ignoring the deliberately jabbing undertones, Dylan smiled. "Pity it won't pass down. I always thought she had the perfect maternal disposition."  
  
The Nietzschean's brow flicked up, lips curving. "So I have often observed." Tones rising, he pointed their gazes to a cluster of distant children. "Tamerlane!"  
  
Briefly, one of the elder children turned from the group, husky skin glowing in the sunlight. Smile breaking, he lifted an arm in an unaffected wave, before settling to a more discreet salute.  
  
"Your son." Dylan stiffened as the realization hit.  
  
"And the reason every bit of this exists as it does this day, I should point out. I do not play games with my blood in the balance, sir. Everything that I did...well, this will someday be his legacy. A worthy cause, wouldn't you say?"  
  
"I'm actually reminded of a little quote from Nietzsche, Tyr." Hunt glanced into the sky, blinking at the scorching sun. "'It's beginnings were, like the beginnings of everything great on earth, soaked in blood thoroughly and for a long time'. Wasn't it, your new Commonwealth? Is it something he'll ever really be proud of, or is he too Nietzschean to care?"  
  
"Where there is to be greatness there is always to be blood, Captain Hunt, do not attempt to fool yourself into believing otherwise. There was blood spilled. Seamus Harper's fell by his own foolishness and yes, by my recklessness. Rebekah Valentine's life was taken by her ever unending valor. Yours by sheer persistence of cause, and you have become a martyr for it...and do not think that this Commonwealth is built upon any foundation but that of your legacy. Ascendent would allow nothing less. Go to her, sir. It is time that her loyalties reaped gratification."  
  
*  
  
Pausing just inside the monumental doors to the general conference room, Captain Dylan Hunt straightened his High Guard uniform and settled his gaze on the sole figure walking towards him from yards away. Rommie was beautiful, unchanged, her own High Guard uniform set off disturbingly well by the Nietzschean arm helix, and she was crying.   
  
Opening his arms, he allowed his eyes to fall shut as her inhumanly strong arms wrapped around his neck, using all that remained of his strength to lift the android from the ground and squeeze in a bear hug. Finally releasing her, he smiled, holding out a hand and accepting hers.   
  
"Shining Path to Truth and Knowledge. It's good to see you're still around."  
  
FIN 


End file.
